Old-school Lyme disease treatment should make room for new approach: PennLive letters

There are two schools of thought on the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease, each from reputable, legitimate medical societies and physicians. I am referring to the Infectious Disease Society of America and the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society.

As science evolves, new ideas always begin as minority views, and old dogma dies hard. Yet, patients are not being informed of these two views in order to make reasonable, informed choices about their care.

In medicine, multiple treatment choices do exist for many diseases. Why must Lyme be so different, particularly when patients are being harmed by the one view that is not consistent with current research and scientific evidence and whose guidelines for diagnosis and treatment are years outdated.

It is time to build a connecting bridge between these two organizations to make the wrongs right, and to benefit humanity by reducing the long-suffering incurred as a result of grave misunderstandings about Lyme and other related tick-borne diseases.

My thoughts for remediation of this health care "disaster" are: To be conciliatory instead of disputatious; to help instead of harm; to accelerate truth instead of retard; to cooperate instead of impede; to collaborate instead of obstruct; to disclose instead of withhold; to be proactive instead of retroactive; to be candid instead of secret; to be an advocate instead of an enemy.